Traitor (Rebel Stars Book 2) (5 page)

"No deal," Rada said.

Fell's head swiveled. "It's simply a book. There's no trickery afoot."

"Do you take photos of every traveler who comes to Absolution?"

"We don't watch the road every second. But between me and the others of my order, I believe we see most visitors."

"Then I need pictures of everyone who's come here in the last twelve months."

The monk's eyebrows collided as slowly as two icebergs. "Getting you into the city is quite a favor by itself."

"And you're asking for a holy book that's been lost for a thousand years," Rada said. "You're lucky I don't make you throw in your monastery, too."

He muttered something in what sounded like a foreign language, then sighed, smiling wryly. "If your boss bargains as hard as you do, it's no wonder he's so wealthy. You have a deal."

The relevant info was already on Fell's device, so Rada packaged it up and fired it to Toman, along with a quick summary of the afternoon and a note explaining the change of device address. While she waited for a response, they arrived at the monastery. The main body was built from blocks of light stone, two stories high and capped by a series of heavy blocks. A sharply pointed arch bore through its middle, showing a garden of flowers and fruits.

It looked pre-modern at the least, but the building it was attached to looked positively ancient: a ziggurat of graying stone, steep steps climbing to three layers of housing. Every inch was carved with faces, animals, and sigils. The stone was so weather-worn it had to be pre-plague at the least, but the simple, blocky elegance of the design made Rada think it was much older than that.

Fell led them to the second floor of the newer structure. The room was an odd mix of ancient, physical books and sleek, modern electronics. The stone floor was relatively cool and the open doorways coaxed a breeze through. While Fell went off to fetch food and water, his device pinged.

Rada called up the message. It was from Toman. He didn't have the book.

Fell returned with a bowl of mashed plantains and chilies. When he heard the news, his face grew as weathered as the older structure.

"Thank you for making the effort." He sat on the floor, resting his elbows on the low table. "You are welcome to rest here tonight, but that's as much as I can offer."

"New deal," Rada said. "I'm sure Toman would pay you for your assistance getting us into the city."

"We have no need of money. Without a meaningful contribution to our studies, I can't absorb the risk of offending Absolution."

She sat back. Her stomach rumbled, but she had no appetite. The day's travel and heat descended on her like a smothering hand. What were they doing here? They were woefully unprepared and undersupplied. Toman's losing battle with the politicians of Better Sands was making him desperate. She should have insisted they spend more time readying for the trip.

Webber stuffed a spoonful of mashed plantains in his mouth. He halted mid-chew, shifting the food to the side of his mouth. "Fell, we may not have the whole book. But what if I can get you some of it?"

The monk's eyes widened. "Life never arrives fully formed. It grows cell by cell, generation by generation. Any step you can bring us closer to understanding will truly be the Way."

Webber laid out his idea. Rada had to admit it was brilliant: compile all the extant quotes Fell had, then fire them off to LOTR, who would not only do a comprehensive net search for them, but could also use their bleeding-edge Merlin system to check for keywords and patterns in the prose to search for alternate translations from the text's original Old American English.

Flinging these queries across the System would take the better part of a day. Dubious of entrusting all their communications to Fell's device, and feeling insufficiently armed after the encounter at the gates, Rada rode her bike back to the car to pick up their gear. By the time she got back, dusk was falling over the jungle. The chirps and trills of the bugs and birds changed, but the temperature refused to budge any lower.

The monastery had a shower, though, which Rada was ready to commandeer at gunpoint. After she finished, they ate with Fell's fellow monks, who looked mildly curious, but had the patience of their profession and left the guests alone.

Feeling terribly old, Rada called it a night. They bedded down in a stone room with nothing but mosquito mesh separating them from the outdoors. Rada was unnerved to be exposed to such an uncontrolled environment in her sleep, but she turned out to be too exhausted to care.

The heat returned hand in hand with the morning. Rada called Toman as soon as she was awake, hoping to catch him before he got embroiled in lobbying.

"Nothing new," he said. "Trust me, as soon as I have something, so will you."

"This is starting to feel like a wild goose chase. This ex-employee, is he really that important?"

"There's no knowing until we've got him. But from what we've dug up, he was one of the key players in FinnTech's involvement with the Swimmers. I'm surprised Finn hasn't had him killed."

He hung up. She headed to the back patio to eat. After breakfast, they hung around the table, drinking coffee laced with something that tasted like black licorice.

Webber set down his mug with a clank. "Why's this book so important to you, anyway?"

Fell looked up from his device. "How much do you know about the Way?"

Webber shrugged. "I'm not big into fiction."

MacAdams socked him on the shoulder with a meaty thump. "Have some respect."

Fell waved a hand. "One man's lack of faith does nothing to diminish my own."

"Swimmer religion," Rada said. "The struggle of life to persevere and find new ways to go on."

"It also holds that the universe is here to be filled by life. Thus, anything that would extinguish life rather than expand it stands in opposition to the purpose of existence. You can think of this in a literal sense—nuclear warfare, for instance—or in a more figurative sense—refusing to let yourself grow as a person, whether through ignorance, laziness, fear, and so on."

Fell paused to sip his coffee. "Mauser's
Three Treatises
tackle both the figurative and the literal. Chaos is a phenomenon as natural as life, yet it stands in opposition to it. Mauser wasn't a proponent of the Way, but his conclusion—that we must fish our own bits of meaning from the soup of chaos—is deeply relevant to us. We're interested in the
Conspiracy
not only as a work Mauser drew upon for his arguments, but because we believe it came to the opposite conclusion: that humanity should voluntarily extinguish itself."

"Sounds like the Swimmers read that one," Webber said. "Maybe you should ask them for it."

"If you could get me in touch with the Swimmers, I'd get you inside Absolution even if I had to tear down the walls with my teeth."

Rada rose to refill her cup. "What's it like in there, anyway? I've read some reports, but I'm guessing your information's a little more up to date."

Fell leaned back in his chair, brushing crumbs from his robe. "You know the basics, yes? That these are people religiously committed to a pre-plague way of life? Well, are you aware they are not a singular religion, but are in fact three different sects?"

"I thought it was four," Webber said.

"Technically, but the Plains and Pilgrims are so similar I rarely find it useful to differentiate them. Now, are you all familiar with pre-plague theology?" The monk looked around the table, met by three blank stares. He sighed. "Well, I had this wonderful parable of the king who owned a ring that embodied his right to rule. However, he had three sons, each of whom expected to receive the ring on their father's death. But the king was wise indeed. Before expiring, he made two copies of the ring. These were so pure and perfect that none of his sons could be certain who had the 'true' ring. These three rings, of course, represented the three Abrahamic faiths…"

He trailed off. If his audience had been puzzled before, they were now thoroughly baffled. Fell scowled and sipped coffee. "Well, much as those three religions shared a common ring of truth—faith in the God of Abraham—so do the three sects of Absolution: that the Swimmers were sent here to punish us for destroying our environment."

"That's not why they invaded us," Rada laughed. "That was just a cover story to justify it to themselves. It was a land grab, same as most wars."

"Probably, but the humans of the day didn't exactly have many discussions with the Swimmers, so who knows? Regardless, the three sects are as follows: the Xenoists, who fear and worship the aliens as purifiers who came to show us the truth. Then there are the Pilgrims, who perceive the Swimmers as nothing more than an instrument of punishment, meant to set us back on the road of pre-plague culture. Lastly, there is the Wrath, a chaotic people who follow the preaching of their mad prophet."

MacAdams belched. "They all manage to coexist in one little city?"

"Not without their share of disputes."

"Now we're talking." Rada stretched her legs over the stone floor. "I don't care about their theology. The only thing I care about is finding our man."

"You are very impatient." Fell pursed his lips. "Then again, so is much of life. Perhaps that is the Way."

Webber rolled his eyes. "Is there anything that
isn't
the Way?"

"There is a reason it is called 'Ever-Changing.' And that fools like me spend a lifetime trying to unravel it. Our monastery shares many common interests with the Xenoists, so that's where you're most likely to end up. As long as you can talk Swimmers with them, you should be fine. By contrast, the Pilgrims evaluate their recruits by their ability to be productive citizens within three months of arrival. If you're taken in by them, work hard in the fields or construction, and no one will pay you any mind."

"And if you place us with the Wrath?" Rada said.

He chuckled. "Then I will have much repenting to do."

Done with their coffee, Fell left to take care of some business around the monastery and to make some preliminary inquiries at Absolution. While he was still out, a message came in from Toman.

LOTR had run their search. They had not turned up a copy of the
Conspiracy
. But, through Webber's alternate methods, they had turned up a slew of fragments, including fifteen pages of verified text, and scores more of unattributed passages that Merlin had identified as likely to belong to the work. Rada hoped it would be enough.

Fell returned shortly. Rada sent his device a sample of the verified text and a piece of the unverified material. Fell cradled his device in his hand like it was the newborn of a newly-discovered species.

Finished reading, he set the device on the low table. "I must admit this is incredible. And yet our deal was for you to deliver the complete book."

"We've turned up much more than you had before," Rada said. "I gave you the sample. The rest belongs to us. If you don't get us into that city, you'll never read another word of it."

He arched a brow. "So impatient. You'll have to do better than this inside the city. You didn't get me the complete book, but you have allowed us to take one more step forward. This steady inching forward is part of the Way. I will get you to Absolution."

* * *

Preparations on Fell's end took two days, most of which Rada spent compiling dossiers on the people Fell and the other monks had photographed entering Absolution in the past year, the timeframe in which their target, Marcus DuPrima, would have arrived. There were no facial matches to DuPrima, but this didn't surprise her. If he was fleeing FinnTech, his first move would have been to hire a surgeon to rearrange his face.

They'd have to leave their guns behind. Fortunately, MacAdams had brought enough knives to share. Fell initially ruled out devices, too—he claimed the city could detect their communications—but Rada talked him around by physically disabling her net access.

Everything in place, they walked through the jungle to the meet, guided by Fell, who'd swapped his green robes for nondescript civilian wear. There was a stillness to the itchily hot morning that made each step feel like a trap. After forty minutes of hiking, Fell stopped in the middle of nowhere.

"The wagon is on the other side of the hill." He moved to shake their hands. "Thank you for helping my people advance our understanding of this chaotic universe. I've followed the revelation of humanity's recent contact with the Swimmers with great fascination. Please, keep up the fight. Whether the aliens mean us good or ill, we can't allow a single corporation to control our future with them."

Rada followed the trail up the hill. MacAdams' eyes roved the foliage, threat-assessing. Webber looked completely untroubled, as if he were on his way through an unruly back yard on his way to a swimming pool. Once they reached the top of the hill, the clunk of axes carried through the dense growth. On their way down, though, they didn't see a soul.

A cart waited for them beside the path. Its bed was layered with giant, tropical leaves.

Webber frowned. "Better not be any spiders in there."

Rada sighed and dived in, pressing herself against the front of the cart and covering herself in the damp leaves. An overwhelming odor of chlorophyll filled her nose. The three of them helped bury each other. The cart was in the shade, but blanketed in leaves, she began to grow warm.

Footsteps crunched up to the cart. A woman said, "See any bees in there?"

The agreed-upon code. Rada answered, "Just a little hive."

Leaves rustled; the blanket atop her grew heavier. Once the cart was good and full, it rocked forward, drawn along by a team of unhurried mules that did nothing to improve the smell. Infected by Webber's idea, every time a leaf shifted on her, Rada envisioned a tarantula, and had to fight not to jerk her legs.

In time, the cart came to a stop. Voices spoke back and forth. Someone came out and walked around the cart, then returned the way they'd approached. A gate creaked. The cart rolled on. Its wheels rumbled on an uneven stone road. Beyond the cart, people chatted. Dogs barked. Somehow, the sound felt wrong. It took Rada a moment to understand why—it wasn't the sound itself. It was what was
missing
. The hum of engines and machinery.